It seems as though hardly a day goes by without a new LEED development being announced or completed as green building continues to gain traction in the mainstream Canadian market.
Vancouver’s Park Place is one of the latest flagship developments to earn LEED Gold certification. The 35-storey high-rise is the first of its kind in downtown Vancouver to achieve that distinction.
The building, which is owned by the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC), has gone through a number of green technological and design changes in order to garner such recognition.
“The certification confirms that sustainable best practices are in place at the property and is an indication of our commitment to environmental stewardship within our real estate portfolio,” bcIMC vice president of real estate Mary Garden said.
These changes centre on long-term green management initiatives that have already reduced the building’s carbon output by 12 per cent, reduced water consumption by 30 per cent and decreased the amount of waste sent to landfill by 18 per cent.
These drastic changes have been achieved by implementing energy saving, water management and recycling programs that are part technology-based and partly reliant on efforts by the building’s tenants, Garden explained.
“Tenant collaboration was very important in helping to achieve this prestigious certificate,” says Garden.
Not only have the new changes allowed the building to stand among the best of built green spaces in the country, but the overall quality of its interiors has improved through the implementation of a comprehensive interior air quality program.
Green buildings may soon outnumber brown building in Vancouver. The rising prevalence of green buildings city-wide has set a new standard for the city, and for Canada as a whole. With Park Place’s considered a premier office space, its endorsement of green is adding to value and prestige cannot be overstated.
The building’s certification is yet anther notch in Canada’s green building belt and is sure to encourage further developments of this nature in downtown Vancouver. With the continued emergence of such developments, some heat has been taken off the Vancouver architecture sector at large, which has recently been labelled soulless and accused of being based on a style-over-substance mentality.
